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Description
Steel guitar is a style of guitar performance centered on sliding a steel bar over the strings to create smooth, vocal‑like glissandi, shimmering vibrato, and rich chord voicings. It originated in Hawaiʻi in the late 19th century and later branched into lap steel (acoustic and electric) and, by the mid‑20th century, the pedal steel guitar used widely in country music.
The sound is defined by sustained tones, expressive portamento between pitches, and lush extended harmonies (6ths, 9ths, diminished/augmented colors). Common tunings (e.g., C6, A6, E13 for lap steel; E9 and C6 for pedal steel) allow strummable jazz‑ and swing‑flavored chords as well as characteristic two‑note “crying” bends in pedal steel. Today, steel guitar spans Hawaiian, country, western swing, gospel sacred steel, roots/americana, and even ambient/experimental contexts.
History
Scholarly and oral histories credit Hawaiian musician Joseph Kekuku with developing the steel technique around 1889, sliding a metal object across the strings of a Spanish guitar to produce singing glissandi. The approach spread rapidly across Hawaiʻi and became central to Hawaiian popular music. At the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, Hawaiian ensembles helped ignite a global craze, carrying the steel sound to the mainland U.S. and beyond.
The pursuit of sustain and volume led to electrification. Rickenbacker’s cast‑aluminum “Frying Pan” (patented 1937) became the archetypal electric lap steel. Virtuosos such as Sol Hoʻopiʻi and, later, Jerry Byrd refined swing‑era harmonies (C6/A6/E13 tunings), influencing western swing and mainstream popular music. Steel guitar also crossed into early blues and hillbilly music via slide techniques.
Mechanized pitch‑changing via pedals and knee levers transformed the instrument’s language. Bud Isaacs’s landmark recording on Webb Pierce’s “Slowly” (1953) introduced the sound of moving inner voices while a chord sustains—a signature pedal steel effect. Builders like Paul Bigsby and players such as Buddy Emmons, Ralph Mooney, Lloyd Green, Speedy West, and Don Helms pushed the E9 and C6 necks into country, honky‑tonk, and western swing, cementing the pedal steel as a Nashville hallmark.
A parallel sacred steel tradition grew within the House of God church (pioneered by Willie Eason, later popularized by Robert Randolph), infusing gospel and blues energy. In roots/americana and rock, players like David Lindley and Santo & Johnny broadened the instrument’s reach. Contemporary artists and composers also exploit steel guitar’s infinite sustain and swells for ambient, cinematic, and experimental music, while Hawaiian stylists continue to preserve and evolve classic lap‑steel idioms.
